Author: Nokyoung Xayasane

welcome to the struggle

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

welcome_to_the_struggle

welcome to the struggle,
Nokyoung Xayasane

This rooftop is too hot,
the men
are too “appreciative.”
I’ve broken the strap
on my sandal
and someone grabbed my wrist
in the stairwell.
I feel its sting
and my yelling ringing
in my ear.
I’m that person now
who yells at bouncers
and at cars driving into me
on the street.
I gesticulate and foam
at the mouth.
Remember when I baked pumpkin pies
and believed you
when you said
she was nothing special?

There is a fire inside the city,
burning blue
smoke everywhere.
I stand coughing my
two-lunged life away.

I want to leave
this place
but I’ve just arrived.
Why do we want to be
where we’re not?
I wait for happiness
to arrive
like some long-sought refuge,
but I alone
must craft this feeling
of rainbows and sunshine
from string and glue and
plastic wrappers.

All I can hear
is incessant laughter
ricocheting off high rises
and buildings made of
steel and glass
and the sun
it blazes
on this city rooftop
tar and spit and the vomit
of words, common syllables
and nothing is said ever
that hasn’t been said before.
The people here
they drink and revel
and call out
to each other
as if it meant something.

How come
I must make an effort
in all things?
I want to put my phone down
and look into another
human being’s face
and tell them
something they’ve never
heard before.

I want to string the words
together in a pattern
that glitters and cuts
that shakes them alive
that transplants them from
this smog-filled city
to a seaside town
and we are in the water
high to our knees
and there are these birds
that circle round and round
and the blue stretches out
beyond our understanding,
then you will
turn to me
and tell me
a harsh truth
about the human struggle,
and it will be filled with
longing and dreams
that fly away by night
and hide somewhere
dark and shining,
ready to be unearthed,
but instead
we turn away and
we glare at the sun.
I blink
and wait for the heat
to dissipate,
a blue fire
burning in the distance.

little red dress

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

perfect_slut

dinner party
Nokyoung Xayasane

There is more dignity
in the homeless people
on the streets
than there is
at this dinner party.

The crisp white napkins,
the many forks and knives and spoons.
Sometimes I want to rip
the white linen tablecloths
off the wooden tables
of this tennis club.
Splash the walls
with colours of reds and whites.
Set fire
to the vodka and bourbon and spirits
on the countertop.

I walk out in my little red dress
and an old man with white hair
says some appreciative.
I smile.
I am docile,
and accommodating,
as is my way.
This is how we act in public, I tell myself.

There is no dignity here.

a face made flawless

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I_am_not_beautiful

Beauty
Nokyoung Xayasane

Sometimes when I look at my face in the mirror,
I see a face made flawless
with makeup.
I wish I could wake up looking like this,
this beautiful.

And then I think about the forgiving nature of water,
how it restores and reveals,
how it shows my true face.

Sometimes I forget what my face looks like,
presented this way.
I am just me,
after all.
But I forget
I am also her.
I am her
to you and to others.

They like to remind me.
You are beautiful, they say.
Thank you, I say.
But that’s like being grateful
for your dark hair
or the symmetry of your lines.
Those are things you can’t control.

When I take my makeup off
I know
this isn’t me
either.

There is someone we all are,
someone in between,
in between the flawless
and the raw.

But I’ll keep on pretending
and maybe you will
too.

I would like to

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

queen_of_disaster

childhood bedroom
Nokyoung Xayasane

I would like to enter
your childhood home
enter your old bedroom
and sit on your lap
with your mom in the other room
I tell you I’ll be quiet
but I lie
though not on purpose

I would like to lay
everything before you,
go on my knees
in front of you,
kneeling before you

I would like to straddle
that line
with you
walk that line
with you,
skip back and forth
on that line
for you
at your leisure

I would like to feel
the violence of you
the fast and hard
mindlessness
of you
the gripping flesh
of you

I would like to pitch
forward
with you
into pitch night
with you
emerge in holy
morning light
with you

I would like
that nothingness
with you,
a deep rest
with you

I would like for you
to turn to me
and say nothing
to me,
absolutely nothing
to me

mostly though
I would like to lie
next to you
in your
childhood bedroom

I would like for you
to get up
at last,
and I will hear
the patter
of soft soles
and the clinking
of china in the kitchen

mostly though
I would like for you
to return to me
and maybe
you will bring for me
a tall glass
of water

we can never go back

Posted on by Nokyoung Xayasane

childhood_red_shirt

elementary
Nokyoung Xayasane

I went back once
to visit my old elementary school.

I remember the wide fields,
but there was only a small patch of grass.

I remember the brick and mortar
and all the rooms filled with light.

But now nothing.
The school had burnt down years ago.

There was no stray brick in sight,
no pole with a flag waving in the wind.

I didn’t get out of the car.
There was nothing there to see.

But there were those
endless golden days,

those Easter egg hunts,
margarine sandwiches in the late afternoon,

books upon books in the library,
messy high and side ponytails.

There was that boy crush
who finally held your hand.

There was a girl once who ran through
the fields, laughing.

There was that feeling
of needing nothing more than what we had.

That’s how it is,
the past, a dream we’ve made up.

We can never go back
no matter how hard we try.

you finally choose me

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perfect_slut

I am happy for you
Nokyoung Xayasane

I am fast asleep.
I try to wake up.

Someone knocks on my door.
No one’s home, I say.

I am half asleep,
thinking about you.

I have a dream
where I am happy for you.

In the dream, a miracle occurs:
you finally choose me.

I wake up without you.
You are still with her.

I am fast asleep.
We are together again.

no evidence of you

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Nok_black_and_white

relic
Nokyoung Xayasane

I’m getting ready
to do the laundry.
I’m washing
the sheets.
The sheets are
stained
from Monday night
Tuesday morning.
There are these
relics around me.
There is a guitar
in the living room
that my ex gave me.
There is a lamp
on my bedside table
that a lover bought
for me once.
There are these
dried flowers
roses and white tulips
baby’s breath
hard twigs
and crispy leaves
tied with a white ribbon.
The tulips
were given to me
on a third date.
The roses
were handed to me
by a lovelorn man
on a street corner.
I tie them together
into a bundle
into a bow
on my little table
by my window
as if they are
one and the same.
They are.
They are
the relics of
hope and desire
and love and loss.
I look around
for relics of you.
There are no gifts
from you
no keepsakes
no evidence
no proof.
There once was
a bruise on my neck
on my chin
that I hid
with makeup.
I thought my date
at the time
would notice
but he did not.
He isn’t as
observant as you.
You are sharp
although
you pretend
to be dull.
You are wise
although
you pretend
to be foolish.
Why is there
no evidence of you?
I sit
in front of my mirror.
There you are.
You are unnoticed
and you are
present.
I get up
and stuff
the comforter
back into its casing.
White fluff
twirls and dances
in the open air
by my window
in the sunlight.
No evidence.
No evidence
of you
at all.

black coffee and cigarettes

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queen_of_disaster

black coffee and cigarettes
Nokyoung Xayasane

You like
your coffee
black.
Now I do
too.
You sleep
naked.
Now I do
too.
I didn’t know
you used to
smoke
cigarettes.
The day
you quit
was the day
before our
first date.
I didn’t know
until months later
that you removed
all your piercings
except for
that one.
Sometimes
I would forget
you don’t like
to read books
and you hated
school.
Love wipes
our memory.
There is only
white light
and this bright
feeling.
You became
someone I wanted.
I was always
who I was
except for that
black coffee thing
and the sleeping
naked thing.
And all those
punk shows
with you
on stage
with your guitar
and me
standing in
the audience
like a sleepy groupie.
Oh, and the drinking
of beers.
I never used to
touch the stuff.
That’s all you.
Now I wonder
if you’re smoking again.
Have you put
those piercings
back in?
Those are things
I wonder and
those are things
I would prefer
not to know
anymore.

the line that cannot be crossed

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perfect_slut

The narrator
Nokyoung Xayasane

There is a line
that you must not cross.
This line, you see,
is invisible.

It is formed
by your senses
your perceptions
your upbringing
your experience.

There is a line
that you must not cross,
the narrator
repeats to herself.
Her mantra.
When she exists,
she exists.
When she narrates,
she narrates.

She goes for brunch
on a July Sunday.
The heat stifles.
Her hair is up.
She orders the eggs benedict
always,
a mimosa
sometimes.
She does not take photos
of her meal.
She eats her meal.

She will sit on the patio
and look out
across the street
at a bar she went to months ago.
That was where
she had decided
to have a one-night stand.

She will be mildly surprised
at the nearness of things.
There are places
she happens upon
coming from a different direction
that becomes new
all over again.
But this one-night stand,
it lasted for weeks,
and not because of her own doing.
Months later, he still messages
her like a dog in heat
with faux courtesy
and an exhausting sentence structure,
wanting to explain something.
What?
She does not know.
She needs no explanation.
She has given him
enough of her time.
Some of them, the weak ones,
the romantics, they can’t let go.

On another night
at another bar
down the road,
she will lift up her drink
and give a toast,
Cheers, she will say,
to this old-fashioned.
I like my drinks strong
and my men weak.

She will write poems
about all of them,
and he will think
they are about him.
Finally, at last
here is something
to memorialize him.
He will no doubt
obsess over it
like he does with
everything
she puts onto paper,
trying in vain
to capture something
he never had.
She has never met anyone
so ripe for love.

Perhaps, she thinks,
he sees her
as a hidden island.
Her name evokes
a pleasurable pain.
He likes to think
about her
to stay alive
to feel alive.

Some of them love
to kneel before her
without any prompting.
Even the most intelligent
will fall at the feet
of beauty.

Sometimes it is too easy.
This bores her.
The way people
are stretched
and moulded
like play dough
by a pretty face
and a curvy body
by a quick wit
and a play of words.

She knows everything
about them
immediately.
They open for her
like floodgates
bursting
unlocked
by a single look,
a well-placed word.

You see, there is a line
that she must not cross.
She steps right up
to the edge.
Her toes
over
hang,
her heel
firmly
on solid ground,
this feeling
of safety and oblivion.
The wind blowing,
the sound of the sea rushing.
She will keep her eyes open
she doesn’t want to miss a thing.
Her eyes fill with tears
of joy of sorrow?
She has learned
they are the same thing.
She leans forward
tottering
on the edge.
She steps back.

There is life
and then
there is art.
The narrator
must remember this.
There is a line
that cannot
be crossed.

Asian nannies and white babies

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that 70s mom

Asian nannies and white babies
Nokyoung Xayasane

Whenever I see Asian nannies
pushing prams containing
gurgling white babies,
I think of my mom.

She must’ve wanted to be
with me too
instead of working at
a sweatshop.
They paid her by the piece.
The faster she sewed,
the more money she made.
She must’ve wanted to
stay with me after school
instead of leaving for work at 2:45 pm
and coming home after midnight.
Sometimes if I stayed up
really late, I would catch a glimpse
of her walking by my bedroom door.

I wonder about those Asian nannies.
I bet their children stay with family members
during the day,
or they ask their eldest to babysit
the smaller ones.
They’ll do this from Monday to Friday
so they could push a white woman’s baby
in an immaculate stroller
through the lush greenery of a city park.
The flowers there
bloom in the gardens.
They’ll sing a lullaby to these white babies
while the sun hangs overhead,
and they’ll see their own child’s face
staring up at them.
They’ll rock these white children to sleep,
and they’ll wonder if their child
has had anything to eat.

Many nights,
my mom would come home,
her face ragged,
her hands raw,
her back sore
from bending over,
sewing endlessly,
the sound of machines whirling
in the background.
Her foot worked the pedal
of those sewing machines
in crammed quarters.
The women in the park
push those prams
up lush green hills.

This is the sacrifice of mothers:
despair and survival
and unyielding love.